The Washington Post Takes a Swing at Its Own Columnist

In February, Washington Post columnist George Will wrote a column calling global warming a “hypothetical” calamity. Among the various uninformed claims he made in his column, Will argued that because global sea ice remained near its 1979 levels, that global warming was not occurring. Despite Will’s widely documented errors, Washington Post’s editorial page editor, Fred Hiatt, did not believe Will’s column merited any corrections. Today, however, in an article regarding new Arctic sea ice data released yesterday by NASA, Washington Post reporters Juliet Eilperin and Mary Beth Sheridan attempted to correct the record:

The Arctic sea ice cover continues to shrink and become thinner, according to satellite measurements and other data released yesterday, providing further evidence that the region is warming more rapidly than scientists had expected. […]

The new evidence — including satellite data showing that the average multiyear wintertime sea ice cover in the Arctic in 2005 and 2006 was nine feet thick, a significant decline from the 1980s — contradicts data cited in widely circulated reports by Washington Post columnist George F. Will that sea ice in the Arctic has not significantly declined since 1979.

Will’s specious claims were specifically about “global sea ice,” not Arctic sea ice. Yet, the overarching point is still true: Will is woefully uninformed about the science of climate change.